The Thomas Jefferson Morality Paradox

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Wed Jan 21, 2009 9:44 am

Okay. Say you were sent back in time with a bear on a leash for exactly two minutes.

The thing is, you were sent back in time to 1774, to Thomas Jefferson's Monticello complex. And you catch Thomas Jefferson on his way to rape some slaves.

Do you release the bear on him to stop him from committing this crime? Why or why not?

Crissa · Post by **Crissa** » Wed Jan 21, 2009 10:17 am

This purports that he raped slaves, very much like the ticking time bomb analogy that's used to suggest torture.

The reason you don't do it is because only a utilitarian can go back in time without killing themselves.

-Crissa

shau · Post by **shau** » Wed Jan 21, 2009 1:14 pm

I think it is pretty clear that bears should be unleashed on people whenever possible, even if the victim is one of the founding fathers.

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Wed Jan 21, 2009 1:30 pm

More importantly, how is a leash going to protect you from a fucking bear? I'm sorry, that's just completely unbelievable. If the bear is ready to go for the kill, the fact that you're holding onto a piece of string around its neck is not going to impede it in the slightest, no matter who it wants to maim. When that bear decides to tear you limb from limb, then leash or no leash, you are fucked.

Seriously, this is a terrible hypothetical situation.

ubernoob · Post by **ubernoob** » Wed Jan 21, 2009 2:30 pm

Plus, wasn't an actual grizzly a pet in the white house at one point? IIRC Lous and Clark brought it back two and they lived on the white house lawn for like a month before being sent to a museum and accidentally killed (and subsequently stuffed).

CatharzGodfoot · Post by **CatharzGodfoot** » Wed Jan 21, 2009 9:32 pm

Assassinate Jefferson yourself and install the bear as his secret double replacement.

Count Arioch the 28th · Wed Jan 21, 2009 10:47 pm

What if Jefferson just started raping the bears?

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Wed Jan 21, 2009 11:02 pm

Meh. It really doesn't seem like it's that difficult of a moral quandary. Jefferson made the country a better place than it would have been if he hadn't been around. So from a Utilitarian perspective, he was net good. And his relationship with Sally Hemings (which is way less troubling to me than the slaves he kept around for labor - check out the dates he took her on in France when his wife wasn't around) scarcely matter in that context.

It's not about what's right, it's about what is best.

-Username17

Falgund · Post by **Falgund** » Wed Jan 21, 2009 11:18 pm

What about finding the event that made him want to rape slaves, and preventing *that* event ?

Judging__Eagle · Post by **Judging__Eagle** » Thu Jan 22, 2009 10:30 pm

If it COULD happen, then it already HAS happened.

For all you know, this is the time-traveller altered "best of all possible worlds" that every keeps on talking about.

IGTN · Post by **IGTN** » Thu Jan 22, 2009 11:47 pm

I think I'd make the same descision as Frank, but I'd justify it differently. If I'm going back in time and I have the choice to alter a past event or not with no retries or ability to examine the consequences, especially one far in the past, I'm not enough of a gambler to change the past; essentially, I'd only decide this way because I know how it turns out more than two centuries out, and it's not bad enough to make me want to push a "reset" button.

tzor · Post by **tzor** » Sun Jan 25, 2009 12:48 am

Lago PARANOIA wrote:Okay. Say you were sent back in time with a bear on a leash for exactly two minutes.

The thing is, you were sent back in time to 1774, to Thomas Jefferson's Monticello complex. And you catch Thomas Jefferson on his way to rape some slaves.

Do you release the bear on him to stop him from committing this crime? Why or why not?

OK first of all, this is a very interesting problem. First there is the whole question of the bear. I'm pretty sure that there has to be a law against the transportation of animals through time for the purpose of changing history. Secondly, the local variety of bear that should be found around Monticello is the black bear, the smallest and the least "man killing" of the various bears. (In fact they are mostly vegitarians.)

Secondly, there is nothing illegal in the whole affair. (Jefferson may or may not have had affairs with his definitely underaged female slave but that is a completely different statement from raping random slaves on a nigtly basis.) There is, on the other hand a pletora of clearly illegal actions being taken by te time traveller at the time.

Considering that we are also talking about a two minute window, the probability argument is so insane that we have to assume that the time traveller was using "scry and die" tactics and faces additional time stalking crimes.

Surgo · Post by **Surgo** » Mon Feb 09, 2009 10:25 pm

I think the question of whether or not the bear is likely to kill Jefferson and not you is a stupid dodging of the question. Just say you have the opportunity to kill him instead.

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Tue Feb 10, 2009 4:27 am

I don't know enough about the good or bad deeds that Jefferson did, so I instead just answered with stupidity, much like holding up a game of Monopoly with "Woah woah woah. What country is this, anyway? Yeah theoretically it's England, but no way does England work like that. Come on here, people."

Of course, doing that means you get to avoid playing what might be the single most annoying game in history.

Neeeek · Post by **Neeeek** » Tue Feb 10, 2009 5:19 am

Koumei wrote: much like holding up a game of Monopoly with "Woah woah woah. What country is this, anyway? Yeah theoretically it's England, but no way does England work like that. Come on here, people."

Monopoly is set in Atlantic City, New Jersey.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Tue Feb 10, 2009 8:08 am

There is an edition of Monopoly made for British Colonies that uses places in London rather than New Jersey. Since she comes from Toon Town, she probably got saddled with one of those.

-Username17

ckafrica · Post by **ckafrica** » Tue Feb 10, 2009 8:29 am

There's also a Canadian one, though where they got 4 railroads I'll never know

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Tue Feb 10, 2009 11:51 am

Yeah, I saw the British one. Singaporean Monopoly is pretty awesome: you have Go, Jail, and every other square is "Go to Jail".

At any rate, Monopoly sucks, and the best thing you can possibly do during a game of it is derail it with arguments about unrealistic rules, the likelihood of dogs and battleships travelling the same roads, or "That wouldn't happen in a socialist country".

Or put your Spess Mahrins on the board and say "Fuck your monopoly, in the Grim Darkness of the far future there is only WAR!"

Crissa · Post by **Crissa** » Tue Feb 10, 2009 11:47 pm

No one will play Monopoly with me after I won a game by hedging out the housing market - in Monopoly, if the bank is out of money or houses, you can't buy hotels or get paid.

They said that was totally unfair. I would have totally lost had I converted to hotels...

-Crissa

CatharzGodfoot · Post by **CatharzGodfoot** » Wed Feb 11, 2009 1:14 am

ckafrica wrote:There's also a Canadian one, though where they got 4 railroads I'll never know

Are you insinuating that Canada lacks railroads?

zeruslord · Post by **zeruslord** » Wed Feb 11, 2009 1:55 am

Catharz wrote:Are you insinuating that Canada lacks railroads?

Everybody but you knows that the Canadian transportation system is made up entirely of hockey skates, meese, and suicide lanes.

ckafrica · Post by **ckafrica** » Wed Feb 11, 2009 2:06 am

CatharzGodfoot wrote:
ckafrica wrote:There's also a Canadian one, though where they got 4 railroads I'll never know
Are you insinuating that Canada lacks railroads?

Well there's a big long straight one from coast to coast and everybody lives on it right?

Oh yeah we have a lot more now, we're buying up all the U.S. lines we can

zeruslord · Post by **zeruslord** » Wed Feb 11, 2009 2:40 am

ckafrica wrote:Oh yeah we have a lot more now, we're buying up all the U.S. lines we can

This just made my day. Now I have to live, for the rest of my life, with a mental image of railroads being dug out of the ground like the castle in Super Mario Galaxy and shipped to Canada on mooseback.

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Wed Feb 11, 2009 3:39 am

...that is completely awesome as a mental image.

That being said, a beach has been stolen before, so it wouldn't be too strange.

No really, the sand was dug up and physically moved to make a new beach, in one of the tropical "All our money comes from the tourism industry, especially the island resorts and beach-hotels" places. I forget which one - there are a bunch of them, all to the North of Australia, and all sharing the characteristic of being owned by non-natives, with the natives working for fuck-all pay.

zeruslord · Post by **zeruslord** » Wed Feb 11, 2009 3:45 am

Aren't the legacies of colonialism great?

Of course, the best I've ever seen was a cricket game being played by Indian or Pakistani immigrants on the Washington Mall. We fought to throw off Britain's yoke, named our main public space after the hero of that war. Later the Indian subcontinent kicked the British out, and yet they come here and play a purely British sport in the place named after the guy who threw the Brits out.

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The Thomas Jefferson Morality Paradox

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